


All Blue Bath Bomb

by MalkyTop



Series: he is beauty he is grace that's a lie please save this man from himself [7]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Personification, sanji turns into the ocean sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-10-30 20:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10884627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalkyTop/pseuds/MalkyTop
Summary: sanji's symptoms: lower than average body temperature, a fountain of salt water coming out of mouth, tendency for fish to splash out of him.





	All Blue Bath Bomb

**Author's Note:**

> I basically took this idea from a SanjixLuffy doujin I saw once because I liked the idea and thought it wasn't explored enough.

_Blue._

_It was all around, shimmering with a muted light that failed to pierce through; blue that held him weightlessly, effortlessly, washed over him and into him and he breathed it freely – or maybe he wasn't breathing at all, didn't need to breathe. He found that he had hands, and that was a relief because it meant he could grab at the blue even if it was not something he could hold, grab at the flashes of light that wavered where they willed, grab at the occasional fish that would dash out of reach._

You are in love.

_And yes, yes he was, always had been, and he could live here forever, floating aimlessly. No feeling of_ _substance_ _, just a feeling of being_ here, _caressed, loved, cared for._

Truly, a man of the sea. One after my own heart...

_Not just of, but for. He would give everything to the sea, had already pledged everything, and when it was over his body would be consumed by the sea._

Would you like it? My heart?

_Whatever he took from the sea, he received with gratitude. It was a gift he was not entitled to, and so it was a gift to be treasured, always, always. I give thanks for your bounty. I give thanks for your calm. I give thanks for my life._

I will give it to you...

_The blue around him seemed to come closer, somehow, hug tighter, and he smiled and laughed and it felt like a well inside him burst with excitement, anticipation, longing._

He woke up.

Returning to consciousness felt like being smothered by reality. As though someone had balled up a goddamn large piece of cotton in his throat, someone else had crumbled stale bread straight into his eyes, and yet another someone topped it all off with a shitty facial using a thin layer of cold wax.

It was five in the morning. It was always five in the morning. He should be used to it being five in the morning, but today just happened to be one of those rare days when the heavy force of “I don't waaaant tooo” pinned down his arms and pushed his head deeper into the tantalizing embrace of his pillow. Even so, he didn't endure a decade of Zeff kicking his ass around to _not_ have some semblance of discipline, and so he rolled his way out of bed, splashed down to the floor, and dragged his way up to the kitchen.

His mind kept rolling like the waves outside. He splashed his face with water, but it didn't help – whenever he closed his eyes, he could still feel that brilliant blue, thrumming behind his eyelids, calling him back to come drift in that beautiful place again, without worry, without care.

It had been a nice dream, but it was time to snap back to reality. He had several breakfasts to make. Robin would be coming in for coffee soon. Right. Coffee. Make that.

Sanji dumped some ground beans into the coffee machine with one hand and scraped some eggs off a pan with the other. By the time Robin had wandered into the kitchen, he was turning over the last few hash browns with a lackluster flip of his spatula.

Robin took in his slouch, his still-dripping hair, and gave a wan smile. “Had a good night's rest, did you?”

Sanji turned and smiled back, crooning out, “Oh Robin-chan! Seeing you makes me feel like I'm still dreaming! Your coffee is all ready, just as you like it~!” At least, he tried to. But much to his surprise, what came out of his mouth instead was an unrelenting torrent of sea water. It flooded his feet, soaked his socks, and seemed to never end, at least until he got the idea to close his mouth again.

He looked at Robin. She had completely halted in her tracks and was now staring at him with an expression that she did not wear quite often, one of complete bewilderment and shock.

Sanji said, “Uh,” dribbled out a few more cups of ocean, and slapped his hands over his mouth.

* * *

 

This was, they wordlessly decided, something for a doctor to look at. But even after Sanji ran back to the bunks and shook Chopper out of his bed with a manic sort of look in his eye, he couldn't help but think, what the hell was a _doctor_ supposed to do?

His very best, as it turned out, but Chopper couldn't do much besides give him a regular check-up; check his heartbeat (he had none), check his temperature (hovering around 70 degrees), check his lungs (when Sanji breathed out through his nose, more water came out). And when Chopper tapped a hammer on Sanji's knee and it fell in with a faint splash, he fell out of his doctor's chair and screamed.

“I think we can safely say that this is some sort of supernatural phenomenon, rather than a medical problem.”

“What,” said Sanji, and he cut himself off before he could drench his pants any further.

“That's _beyond_ supernatural! I don't even know why you thought _I_ could do anything! Does this really just... _happen_ on the Grand Line!?”

Robin righted Chopper's chair once more and pushed it back under his desk. “I certainly haven't come across any description of this type of event occurring in any of my books. And if this has ever happened before, I'm sure it would be something considered notable enough to record.”

Sanji remembered not to say, “Are you _serious_ right now what the shit is this,” and instead started gesturing towards his head, moving his hands in an awkward hover, this currently being the only way that his frazzled mind could come up with to represent the word 'dream.' Chopper took pity on him and handed over paper and a pen, which Sanji grabbed at eagerly. When he had finished his scrawl, the pen had disappeared into his hand and the paper had gotten slightly damp, ink running like a goddamn marathon. Robin held it out with a detached arm.

“Sounds like a typical case of a mortal receiving a message from a deity. As typical as that can be, I should say.” And, acting as if the entire morning was nothing out of the norm, Robin set down Sanji's haphazard summary and rose to her feet. “I shall reference what I have on oceanic lore. In the meantime, be sure not to sink the ship, Sanji.”

Ohhh, how reliable, his floating flotsam in this frenzied storm, his benevolent guardian angel! There was a weird gurgling sound coming deep from within his throat that got a few concerned glances from Chopper, but he managed to keep his words in and instead blew silent, effusive kisses at her back even after she had shut the door behind her. Sanji swayed like a schoolgirl, biting at his knuckles and kicking his legs with his leftover affection, until Chopper reminded him that there were other people besides Robin by handing him a face mask.

“I don't really know what to do...but maybe wearing this will help remind you about...about _that._ ”

Sanji sighed, causing a bit of the ocean to bleed out his nose, but took the face mask and nodded. Once everybody finally got up, this was going to cause a _lot_ of questions...

* * *

 

“Woah, never seen cook bro _sick_ before!”

“Is he contagious? He's not contagious is he? If he cooked like that, I'm not sure the food's – _Luffy don't just eat it!”_

“He overworked himself, didn't he. Sanji-kun, if you don't take a break once in a while, then you'll be useless when you finally break down.”

Zoro just yawned and joined Luffy at the table, not even sparing a glance, that bastard. Brook had halted in the doorway and only now started to snap out of his daze. With stiff steps, he strode towards Chopper and leaned down at an impossible angle until his jaw reached Chopper's ear. And though he whispered (as if Sanji's privacy was in danger or something), Sanji could distinctly hear his voice, deep, wavering: “Chopper-san...is this...perhaps...a life-threatening matter...?”

Chopper, already anxious and overwhelmed by the various reactions and questions being thrown around, now screeched and shot himself straight into a chair, promptly clattering to the floor in a mess of fur and wood. “Life-threatening?! Is it!?”

“We're asking _you,”_ Nami snapped, even as she started chewing at her lip. Chopper righted himself and proceeded to avoid everybody's eyes while kicking at the floor. This, surprisingly, did nothing to ease any suspicions.

Sanji slid in front of Chopper, hands raised in a hopefully placating gesture (couldn't say he was an expert in those) and smiled, before remembering that nobody could actually see his mouth. He flexed an arm and patted the muscle there, paused to see if everybody understood, and then gestured towards breakfast, which was already halfway down Luffy's gullet. Everybody jumped for what was left on the table with manners almost as bad as their captain's, but he figured he could let that slide, considering the circumstance.

It didn't mean that everybody forgot about his mysterious condition. “Ffo wha's wrong wif Fanji?” Usopp muffled out, spraying his eggs dangerously close to Nami's luminous visage. Sanji gave him a reminder via a flick to his nose.

Chopper, good kid that he was, swallowed before answering. “Well...I mean...it's not...a disease...? I'm honestly as confused as everybody else.”

“Mmff, but wha're th' symppoms?” said Nami, her flecks of bacon flying straight onto Franky's sunglasses, and what graceful accuracy she had~! For some reason, Usopp thwapped the side of his arm. Sanji nudged him back.

“It's,” Chopper started, but fell into a stutter. Sanji couldn't blame him. The situation was rather hard to explain, not because there were no words to describe it, but because it defied all logic. Where to start?

“Well if it means the damn cook can't talk, then I'm all for it,” said Zoro, scraping his fork across his plate to scoop the last bit of food into his mouth.

Sanji's eyes darkened for a moment. He leaned over, stared straight at Zoro's ugly mug, pulled down his face mask, and opened his mouth. Sea water came out in a pressurized blast, smacking into Zoro's head and tipping him over onto the floor. The swordsman gasped and spluttered. Everybody else just gasped. Luffy, now lacking food, started to laugh.

“What the heck was _that,_ ” Nami quavered out. Her hands had shot up to her face, but she was starting to regain some definition of composure and now shook Chopper's shoulder. “What the heck _was_ that?!”

“For some reason, Sanji has sea water in his mouth,” Chopper muttered, resigned to listing off all the unbelievable symptoms one by one. “His body temperature is also abnormally low, around eighty degrees...”

“Hey, hey, what's up with that?” Luffy said, his grin bright enough to power the sun, and Sanji held in a sigh as a rubbery arm snaked around his body. But instead of a brief instant of tension before a hard impact with the ground, Sanji felt the grip instantly loosen. And then Luffy collapsed onto the table.

Everybody jumped to their feet. Sanji shook Luffy's arm off, which allowed Luffy to get back up, looking an odd combination of pissed and upset and confused and intrigued.

“Saaaanji, you did that thing that the stupid rocks do! No fair!”

“I guess touching him has the same effect as seastone on us,” Chopper translated, and Sanji slumped. Oh, Robin-chan! To never feel your touch again! Forced to be like water and oil, was there ever a tale as tragic as this?

Franky scratched at his chin and sat back down. “So it's soundin' to me that our bro's got a whole ocean or somethin' in him. Somehow. Why don't we just let him dump it all out over the side of the ship? Gotta run out at some point.”

“You don't run out of _ocean,_ ” Nami argued, and Sanji nodded for the principle of the matter, but it was true, dipshit, you _don't_ run out of ocean.

“But the ocean's inside a _person,_ ” Franky shot back, framing Sanji's form with his huge hands. “ _People_ only got so much volume in 'em!”

“There's more than you'd think,” Chopper mumbled. “I...well...it's...kinda like...Sanji _is_ water? I...dropped my hammer in him and couldn't...get it out.”

Another (increasingly common) silence descended, lasting until Luffy jumped towards Sanji with wild abandon, hands outstretched, and it took Sanji all his might to not scream before Zoro grabbed Luffy by the vest and pulled him back. “You can't touch him, remember?” It was a good thing that he couldn't talk, because then he might have been forced to (gag) _thank_ Zoro. Luffy wriggled.

“But I wanna! I can do what I want! Lemme go!”

“You should use a broom instead.”

Sanji went back to screaming with everything except his voice as Luffy ran out to find something appropriate to poke him with. Behind him, Franky placed a hand on his back. “Hey, it's not going in.”

“You have to push a little...yeah.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” Franky yelped as he recoiled, pulling his hand out along along with the back of Sanji's shirt, both drenched as hell. Sanji turned around and gestured manically with a shaking fury.

“Whoops. Sorry. Didn't think about that.”

“Hey! Franky! _I_ wanted to do it first!!”

“I kinda did it first,” Chopper mumbled, but Luffy was a little too enthusiastic to listen, preoccupied with jabbing a broom handle at Sanji over and over.

“But...how is this _possible?_ ” Nami managed, moving on from weak-kneed shock to incredulous curiosity as Sanji flailed in futile attempts to ward off the broom. Dark circles of damp bloomed on his shirt wherever Luffy got a hit in until finally, Sanji just threw it off and tossed it in a heavy clump straight at Luffy's face. If his intention was 'make Luffy topple over with hysterical laughter and pass the broom to Zoro,' then it was a resounding success.

“Gotta admit, this is really cathartic.” Zoro swirled the broom in his bare torso like some sorta shitty soup. Sanji grabbed at the handle, gave it a sharp pull, and wrenched it out of Zoro's hands. It fell in. Shit, he was really polluting himself.

Usopp, who until this point had stayed in the weak-kneed shock stage, suddenly released his death grip on his chair and strode forwards, flipping his goggles down. “Hang on, maybe I can get it.” And with no further warning, Usopp dunked his head straight into Sanji's chest.

A squawk burbled out of Sanji's mouth in streams of water and he froze up, his mind unable to come up with any sort of behavioral protocol for this sort of situation. It seemed that nobody else had much to offer either, all of them focused on the part of Usopp that wasn't in Sanji, which was his butt.

“Oh, I have thought of a delightful recreational activity to partake in! Since we do not have an indoor pool, perhaps Sanji – “

“ _NO,_ ” Nami shouted, giving voice to some of the screaming in Sanji's head, and she smacked Brook on the skull for good measure.

“Um, something's happening to Usopp...”

At Chopper's prompting, everybody turned to look and mostly saw Usopp's legs looking as distressed as legs could look; and considering Usopp, they looked _very_ distressed. Sanji could even assign what type of distress they were expressing: it was a 'there's a monster and I'm scared but I can't quite seem to decide how to run away' kind of distress.

“Pull him out!” Nami screamed, and Franky reacted first, grabbing hold of Usopp's waist and pulling back. A little too enthusiastically, Sanji noted, as the two rocketed backwards and into the table, toppling everything over, but he was a little distracted by the tiger shark that had followed Usopp out.

“AAAAAAUGH,” said Usopp, and most everybody else.

“AAAAAAUGH, _”_ Sanji tried to express in the form of more sea water as he jumped back and away from the shark that had just materialized.

“FOOD!” Luffy yelled exuberantly. The tiger shark didn't even land before it got wrapped up in a rubbery grip. “Let's cook it right now! Sanji, cook it!”

Usopp had stopped screaming and Sanji had the presence of mind to close his mouth. “Th-th-there's fish in there!” Usopp explained, loudly and needlessly.

Sanji wasn't sure if he was steady enough to get back on his feet, but he was certainly stable enough to think up a joke about how the fish probably thought Usopp's nose was a worm. Not that he could say it, which was a shame, because it was a _really_ good joke that couldn't be properly expressed with creative gestures.

* * *

 

He woke up.

It wasn't quite five yet, his biological clock said, and he raised his head in bleary confusion, only for a hand to clamp over his face.

His first instinct was to lash out, because what else was there to do when you were clearly being smothered? But instead of the counterattack that he expected, the smotherer hissed out, “Goddamn moron, _close your mouth!”_ in a distinctly marimo-ish tone.

He almost shot back a retort just to be his usual contrary self, but the meaning of the words hit him like a train and he bit down on his teeth with a click and threw himself off his bed and his feet immediately splashed ankle-deep in water.

The men's quarters was flooded. Usopp was piling up errant clothing in a laundry basket and balancing that on someone's bed, out of reach from the water lapping at his feet. Luffy was being productive by splashing around, kicking water at anybody unfortunate enough to be close, which was mostly Chopper and Brook.

“Oh! Sanji woke up! Now we won't drown!” Luffy's victims gave a half-hearted cheer, dampened by the few hours of sleep they had.

“Yeah. Water park's closed. _Help out already._ ”

“Franky's not back with buckets yet. Hey, can we get a bubble bath here?”

“If Franky comes back and the room's flooded with bubbles, he'll probably kill you. And I won't stop him.”

Such a violent threat of mutiny matched with a just as threatening glare was met with a disappointed “boooo.” But the men's quarters didn't explode into lilac-scented bubbles, which at least showed Luffy was listening this time.

“As for you,” Zoro continued, finally turning back to the one who created the whole mess. Sanji, his mouth clamped so tight that it might as well have welded shut, made a look of pure contrition, clasped his hands together, and bowed them up and down, looking at each person in turn.

“Shut up,” Zoro said, dragging him back by the collar of his shirt. “You need a new place to sleep. That won't end up drowning us all.” Sanji tried to twist and make some sort of face at Zoro, but he wasn't quite flexible and if he wasn't careful, he could end up falling over.

“It's fine! Don't worry, we'll handle this!” Usopp called out as Sanji found himself taking a crash course on how to keep his balance backwards. He couldn't even come up with a response to mime out before Zoro dragged him out and kicked open the aquarium hatch with his bare feet as though it was just a carpet to flip over. When he started to pull his cargo in front, Sanji realized the _hell_ he was doing and dragged his feet, smacking him on the side of his head and making a noise like a boiling pot frothing over.

Thankfully, Zoro was not too much of a clod to ignore that. He stayed his hand. “What.”

Sanji gestured at his really nice as shit pajamas, pointed to the aquarium, and then pointed from his crotch to the men's quarters.

Zoro's brow seemed to crust over. “I'm not getting you new underwear, bastard,” and before Sanji could bemoan in an overwrought, nonverbal scream about the misfortune that plagued his life, having to deal with a man who grew out of the ground and was likely made from it too, toe to brain, Zoro picked him up and freaking tossed him in the goddamn aquarium, shitty asshole shithead son of a craphole shit.

* * *

 

_Blue._

_It stretched out everywhere. It connected everything. In the air and on the land. Rivers. Lakes. Clouds. Oceans. He could feel all of it mingling together until he couldn't tell the sky from the sea, a sprawling mass of endless blue that gave the world its shape. He couldn't say that he was in any one point. No. He was rushing down the mountains of a South Blue island. Cresting over a beach on the Grand Line. His entire being felt like it was diffusing, but not growing lesser, simply growing, and there was a place of his origin, a place where everything converged, or the opposite of that, perhaps –_

He woke up.

It was five this time, and it took him a moment to recognize where he was until he remembered the current and everlasting bane of his life, Zoro, and what that brute thought was the solution to him accidentally flooding the ship in his sleep. Idiot goddamn ape didn't even seem to understand _why_ he had jumped out and sprinted back to his closet, wet clothes slap slap slapping against his skin, had to ask _why_ he was peeling off all his clothes and washing them and jumping into his swim trunks, because gee, who _knows_ why someone would want to wash out the salt from ocean-drenched clothes! Certainly not the shithead who practically bathed his clothes in blood every time they docked on an island, probably hadn't heard the word 'laundry' until someone listed it as one of the chores necessary to maintain the ship. Probably couldn't tell anything about grumble mutter clothing quality gripe gripe too much scar tissue to even _feel_ sigh moan.

But he was getting distracted. Five in the morning. Breakfast. Food. Cook. If he was going to complain, he could at least complain _productively._

The hatch to the aquarium didn't exactly swing open, but burst. And Sanji didn't quite climb out, more like beached himself on the edge of the hole in a soporific, boneless flop that was more in line with primordial ooze than anything resembling a human. He didn't quite notice anything wrong, not until he heard Brook's inelegant squawk.

“A ghost!!! A sea monster!!!????”

It was hard to tell where specifically Brook was looking at any given time, but his ambiguous warning made Sanji try to figure it out anyways. Something over the side of the ship? He swiveled himself around and tried to stand, and it was then he realized he had no legs to stand on.

He turned back to Brook, who stood stock still, eyes wide (as always (not that he had eyes)). “...Sanji-san…?” he said, with far more incredulity than his previous outburst.

Sanji took stock for the first time this morning. He wasn't human. Or he didn't look human; what he looked like was strangely enthusiastic water trying to take over land. Like he was water. Or. He was wearing water. And, in fact, the longer he stayed out of the aquarium, the more that water dripped off him, like shedding skin, giving him back a form he was more used to. As soon as he had visible arms again, he pulled himself further away from the hatch, smacked at the mass of water that _wasn't_ him, no, it was the _aquarium,_ until it all stopped clinging to him, and then shook his legs out until they were proper legs instead of goddamn water.

He was him again. Though, looking at the surface of his skin, it still glittered and wavered under the morning sun, like he wasn't quite solid, not all there. He let out a shaky breath. Just one, because it frothed out in liquid form, reminding him to keep his mouth shut. Brook carefully stepped his way closer, hand outstretched, but hesitated just short of physical contact.

“Are you alright?” Brook asked, in a way that sounded more like “ _Will_ you be alright?”

Sanji didn't move, but his throat made a weak gurgling sound that steadily crescendoed into something he hoped was representative of: “What the _hell_ just happened.”

* * *

 

“Think of him like a bubble.”

Breakfast had somehow happened, despite a lot of freaking out and some inarticulate explanations accompanied by harried gestures for those who hadn't witnessed Sanji turning into the ocean and back.

Robin stirred her cup of coffee and everybody patiently waited for her to complete her metaphor.

“When two bubbles collide, it is possible for them to merge together, to form a larger one. Likewise, I suppose whenever Sanji is submerged in a body of water for a long period of time, he becomes a part of the whole. Perhaps.”

“So he's water. We're all just gonna accept that he's water now. Like, _literally_ a body of water.”

“Did you find anything about reversing this?” Nami asked, far more practical than Usopp's fretful babble.

“It is proving rather difficult.” A hand continued stirring the coffee as Robin flipped through one of many books she had brought to the table. “The answer would be most likely found in sailor lore, which is such a broad subject with little regard for a standardized canon – as it is a culture based occupationally rather than geographically – and anthropologists, until recently, did not bother to even think of recording the culture of the working class. As a result, the related material I have is few and far between. Mostly what I am able to find is a common belief in a personification of the sea, varying in power and temperament depending on who you ask. Apparently, she is known to grant gifts similar to this; sailors dedicated and faithful to the sea are said to be transformed into dolphins to spare them from death.”

From one end of the table, Luffy grunted. “What kinda stupid gift's this? Sanji can't eat! It's stupid!”

When Luffy glared towards the side of the room where Sanji leaned, his idiotic intensity made him reflexively smile back and wave his hands in a cheerfully dismissive gesture. Luffy's scowl deepend. “Cooks should eat food! That's what 'cook' means!”

“Not really...but I understand how you feel.” And now Chopper was staring, no, everybody was, at him, at the eight plates he set, at the empty chair. “Are you gonna be okay? With...this?”

Luffy was wrong, as usual. Being a cook meant giving food to others. And Sanji gave perfectly, could still give, and if it was someone else who couldn't eat, didn't need to eat, it would have driven him mad. But it had happened to him. So that didn't matter, as long as he could still give himself for his crew. In some ways, this transformation almost felt representative of his philosophy. A bountiful ocean that gave, never took.

But none of that he particularly wanted to spend time mapping out with his hands, so he curled his thumb and index finger together in a symbol for how okay he was, and beamed another smile for good measure.

He was met with a tense silence.

Brook, a veteran of long silences, broke it with a light-hearted, “Well, at least we will never be in want for fish.”

“Yeah, the aquarium's the fullest I've ever seen! They just all appeared out of nowhere!”

“Out of the cook,” Zoro corrected, bringing the conversation back down to its initial awkwardness, and Nami kicked him under the table.

“It means fishing's no fun anymore though,” Usopp muttered, setting his jaw firm on his hand.

“Fishing's not fun _normally,_ bro.”

“Hey Sanji, you think I could start fishing out of you?”

Sanji's foot splashing right on Usopp's face answered that question.

“But honestly, Sanji-san has quite a thriving ecosystem! I feel invigorated just taking in all the vibrant fish – not that I have eyes to take in with! There was an especially beautiful blue-finned elephant tuna, but they all look so healthy; I wonder if it has to do with the vigor of you – _ooouueegh?!”_

Sanji had vaulted over the table, crashed straight into Brook, and brought the two of them to the floor, where he started to shake Brook's shoulders roughly. Brook, for his part, did nothing but say, “What? Huh?? Excuse me???” over and over until Usopp tried to peel him off but instead dipped his hands somewhere in Sanji's arms, which was awkward for everybody involved and was thus successful in calming Sanji down.

Usopp jumped up and wiped his hands on his pants. “Jeez, don't just jump at people like that! Brook's a devil fruit user, remember?”

Sanji took his turn to clamber to his feet as well and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head while raising a hand to acknowledge his bad while Usopp bent to help Brook and his chair back up.

“What got your panties in a twist, anyways?” Franky asked, leaning over to look Sanji up and down.

“He's always been like that.”

Franky boomed out a laugh and shared a high-five with Zoro, who looked far too smug about his lame joke. But not even completely justified vengeance on certain marimo bastards could distract Sanji from what he needed to know _now_ and he tugged at Brook's sleeve, slapped his hands together, and wriggled them back and forth.

“...A dance?”

Sanji almost bent over backwards with the sheer frustration, water frothing from his lips as he burbled out something incomprehensible through his fingers, before he rushed out and down to the aquarium lounge, stumbled over to the glass, and pressed his face against it without bothering to see if anybody had followed. His eyes scanned the fauna within, though all of them had flinched away when he hit the glass; it took some time to observe them proper. And even then, there was just so much to see that he found he could barely get a sense of the species of one fish before his attention sprung to another. He saw the bright flashes of color typical of the tropical south. Large schools of tiny fish, which he associated with a barely remembered home. Eels from the east and sharks from the west. All of them, miraculously, in one tank, from one source.

He turned around and everybody _had_ followed him, all of them saying nothing until they found confirmation in the shape of his expression, and his mouth was running just as much as his eyes, as he kept mouthing the culmination of his entire existence over and over again through the current of water pouring out and even as it all pooled around their feet, even as little goldfish started tripping from his mouth, nobody told him to close it, not now.

He couldn't help but laugh. Couldn't help but cry. Because he had prepared himself for many scenarios; he had expected a spontaneous success; he had anticipated a prolonged discovery; he could have accepted a lifetime of failure; he could have been able to predict _anything_ besides what actually happened. Here. Right now.

He was All Blue.

* * *

 

“Here it comes, here it comes!”

“Wooow, Usopp! That's even more than yesterday!”

With an expertise that Sanji might have found worrying some time ago, Usopp wrenched the net out of Sanji's head and tipped the wriggling mass into the aquarium. Before Usopp could give the net another dip, Sanji nudged the hatch shut, mimed an explosion with his hands, and ended it with a meaningful glare.

“Don't worry, there's _plenty_ of room,” Usopp drawled back, though he shouldered his net. When it came to Sanji, any food-related squabble ended with him the clear winner.

Sanji moved his hands close together, tensed his shoulders upward like he was being squeezed, mimicked death in a rather exaggerated and cartoonish way, then held his hands out and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, okay, _fine._ I get it. But anything that jumps out of you is fair game!”

A dolphin chose that exact moment to surface for air. It emerged from Sanji's back, made a beautiful leap over the deck, and landed fortuitously (or not) overboard. Sanji watched as its tail disappeared below the waves, then slyly glanced back to Usopp and jabbed a thumb towards where the dolphin went.

Usopp scrunched his face up in distaste. “I'm not getting that.” And fishing was over.

Sanji didn't sleep in the aquarium, not after that first night, after he wore the water like a second skin and felt an unnerving vastness somewhere in the back of his mind. Instead, he slept in the tub. It had a drain, and Franky had added a convenient tank for any errant fish to go until they could be transferred to a proper home. It wasn't the most comfortable, but it also didn't leave him waking up as a fluid.

So he didn't sleep in the aquarium. But he still spent most of his time staring at it.

Even beyond the time it took for acclimation, after everybody simply accepted yet another turn of fate that had befallen them, Sanji hadn't figured out his own feelings on the matter. On the one hand, this was _really_ freaking weird. Like, the entire top ten list of weirdest things he had experienced, forever. And yet.

And yet...

Luffy plopped down into a seat next to him, standing crouched on the cushion and leaning over the back to stare through the glass rather than just sitting like a normal person. Sanji acknowledged him with a nod, his eyes still sparkling from the sight before him. But Luffy's expression told him this was going to be one of those rare, serious conversations that cropped up every once in a while, and so he schooled his own face in response.

It took a minute for Luffy to open his mouth, as though he was actually struggling to find the words for his thoughts. Yet another rarity, for Mr. Say Whatever's On My Mind himself to be at a loss. But when he finally did, it was, true to his character, kept sweet and simple.

“I hate this.”

Sanji didn't move. This was the most direct anybody had been about voicing their own thoughts about his situation. Luffy pressed on.

“It's your dream, so I'm happy too! But I miss too many things. I wanna hear your voice. I wanna see you eat. I wanna touch you and stuff.”

Woah, woah, _woah!_ Isn't that a little too forward?! Sanji almost fell out of his seat, scooting away from Luffy's angrily pouting face. And it shouldn't be _possible_ for someone who didn't really have blood anymore to blush, but he was sure he was blushing anyways. Dammit, Luffy, at least think a _little_ before you say things!

His captain, socially inept as he was, didn't seem to notice anything, and just lied down and kicked his legs up. “Maaaan, it's just lame! It's stupid! But, like, it's not, 'cause it's cool, but it's lame! It feels like you're leaving! I hate it!”

The fish continued exploring their new home, unfazed by the tantrum going on outside. Sanji raised a hand, paused, and cautiously gave Luffy's head a few pats. Whether that weakened him or not, Luffy glanced up with a smile.

“That means you're staying for sure, right?”

It was weird. It was inconvenient. And yet. He couldn't hate something that ensured that nobody around him would ever starve.

But that meant nothing if there was nobody to feed.

He smiled. Luffy smiled back. Like an unsaid promise.

* * *

 

They had fought armies. Battleships. Vice admirals, even. But _this_ was a whole different kettle.

A whole band of battle-hardened brigands managed to get on their deck. Crowded their deck, with relentless numbers and an eager readiness for blood, sabotage, treasure, all those brigand things that brigands liked. If Luffy or Zoro had managed to catch them on their own ship first, things would have been different. There would be no worry about collateral damage, and the Thousand Sunny would just go on its way leaving a sinking ship behind it. But, somehow, the enemy was on their deck, packed in enough to limit their movement and their options, and Sanji wasn't sure what to do.

He couldn't be affected by anybody's attacks. It was as fruitless as trying to cut water. Something that was pretty nice for his life expectancy, but not so much for his offensive power. Kicking resulted in his leg splaying out like sea spray, leaving his would-be victims spluttering in surprise rather than knocked to the floor. And trying to drown them in him took prolonged, one-on-one grapples that often didn't even work in his favor. And all the while, the fight raged desperately on.

This was all wrong. None of them should be having this much trouble getting this fight over with. He was sure that he didn't even see a single devil fruit user among this entire mob. But any punch that got wound up was grabbed at and stopped. Any swing of a weapon was pushed against with the weight of a troop. This brigand was full of shitty lightweights. But they knew close quarters combat, knew the power of numbers, the power of cramped spaces; knives didn't need a wide swing to be dangerous.

Was that the sound of Usopp being trampled? He couldn't tell. But this was an utter nightmare for a sniper, he was sure. Someone was screaming. High-pitched. Chopper. Sweet Chopper, whose heart bled itself out with the desire to help his injured friends, but who couldn't even see who was injured, where the injured _were._ The one having the easiest time was Robin, who could simply dispatch the scum around her with a thought, but all her discarded bodies piled up, pressed her against a wall, and even she could be vulnerable to being crushed.

The men around him quickly realized that there was not much they could do against him, and he found himself in a confusing maze of sweat and muscle before finding himself pushed to the side of the ship. He looked down. Stared at the masses ahead. Leaned back, over the railing, and fell.

What happened next could only be called a very selective, relatively small tsunami that rose like a leviathan and crashed down on the ship with a force that didn't let up until every last invader had been swept off. Not that it actually let up, whisking the scattered brigand away with maliciously dizzying currents and slamming them into the hull of their ship until it got peppered with enough human-shaped holes to sink. Strangely enough, the true residents of the Thousand Sunny were somehow spared, the water having breezed over them like air, though everybody was utterly soaked. (To the bone, one of them might say.)

The tsunami settled into calm waves, spreading itself outward, far beyond the tiny ship, feeling out the vastness of space around it. There was the depths, deep and dark and dense with weight. There were different temperatures. Different weather. Smatterings of storms raging in some areas, spring winds ghosting over others. All the extremes and everything in between, over such a wide expanse that it all blended together into a meaningless average. And there was even more space outside of that, all of which served to make everything seem that much smaller; whirlpools became pores, islands became pimples, underwater trenches became the groove of fingerprints. There was more space. Stretching out and around until it ended up reaching itself again. Circling around, constantly moving, waters mixing and mingling, currents like massages on

Somewhere, something disturbed the surface of the sea.

It happened all the time, in many insignificant ways. Creatures broke the surface to breathe. Broke the surface to fish. Broke the surface to drown. Those were smaller than islands, even smaller than whirlpools, so small as to be near invisible.

But something disturbed the surface of the sea. Something struggling, something weak, something scrawny, something... _straw,_ something that was a goddamn rubbery bastard that had a stomach of a giant and a shitty sense of self-preservation and _couldn't damn well swim_ so why the shit was he even there that goddamn pain in the ass he was going to tie him to the mast and throw him scraps for the _whole day_ that asshole what was he even _thinking_

Sanji had no arms but he whisked Luffy up in them and he had no legs but he kicked fiercely until the two of them burst out of the ocean and back onto the ship, one of them coughing, one of them trying to not be a mass of water, and they landed with a messy splash and a tangle of limbs until Sanji managed to shake off his coat of sea. And it was a good thing he had friends because they were all giving voice to the lectures he wanted to give to the asshole still vomiting up inhaled water, things like how he was an idiot and how could he think doing that was a good idea and maybe he could consider telling everybody else what he was about to do first and was he even listening?? Be serious!

But Luffy was Luffy. And when Sanji glanced down, his skin slowly shouldering on the illusion of being flesh again, all he saw was a smile as brilliant as sunlight skimming across the ocean.

“There you are! You came back!”

And in the end, Sanji wasn't an ocean at all. Couldn't even be compared. Was afraid of being compared, in fact. Because with the vastness of the ocean came its apathy, and he could never bring himself to be that. Not even with an ocean bursting inside of him. Because, after all, he was Sanji. And there was a lot he wanted to say, but all he could do was cover his mouth and choke out something akin to a hysterical chuckle as everybody around him frantically asked questions about this or that.

“Jeez, Sanji, you shouldn't just go jumping off ships like that! It's reckless, is what it is.”

Sanji's face went blank and he leaned over Luffy, opened his mouth, and released a waterfall right over that shitty smile.


End file.
